Side Loads on Denso motors

My team was discussing how to mount our roller on the front of our robot and the prevailing idea seemed to be to power it with 1 ND motor on each side and use those for the sole mounting of the assembly.

What I was wondering is if the motors will tolerate the side loading this application would cause? The loading will mostly be derived from compressing the balls ~1-1.5". The mechanism should be mostly protected from incursion by other robots and trailers based on it’s height and the design of the front of the robot.

In 2006 we used a nippon denso motor as part of our “magic foot”. A device that was rotated into place on the bottom front of our robot that picked up our omni wheels and planted a nice long strip of traction material on the ground.
The “foot” was supported by a bronze bushing on one end, and the nippon denso on the other, never killed it except when we managed to strip the plastic worm gear from having it halfway down and running the robot onto it…side loading wasn’t the issue though.